Research has been ongoing with regards to developing new technology for the successful deconstruction of used clothing that leads to the creation of new products. The concept of upcycling, or turning something old into a product of the same or greater value, has been gaining increased interest recently. Sustainable textile research began with a desire to change the current wasteful state of the apparel and textile industry. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated that the United States generated 24.5 tons of rubber, leather and textile waste in 2014. Because many fibers do not decompose, they sit in landfills and are hazardous to surrounding life forms, whether they be human or nature. One way of combating this problem begins with recycling, which for the textile and apparel industry means gathering unwanted textiles and extending their useful life.
Upcycling products are defined for purposes of this application to be those that retain “their high quality in a closed-loop industrial cycle”. A distinction should be noted regarding the difference between upcycling and recycling. Recycling fully breaks down the textile into fibers again while upcycling still leaves the textile in its fabrication form. There is no uniform upcycling technique, making the reuse of textile products more complex than simply throwing them away or breaking them down.
The apparel and textile industry is constantly growing to meet the demanding needs of consumers. With this growth come large amounts of textile waste as consumers throw away products to make room for new trends which might be fueled by fast fashion. Fast fashion is a phenomenon that has enabled consumers to purchase low cost, trendy clothing. Due to the low cost and high volume, consumers buy frequently which leads them to perceive garments having a short life and to be disposable. In response to these products, the consumer's mindset has created a growing excess of textile waste. Fortunately, people have begun to see the need for upcycling and recycling textiles and clothing and have begun to do so in several ways, including upcycling through garment disassembly, chemical and mechanical process, and salvaging scraps.
Upcycling
Upcycling gives textile products a longer lifecycle which keeps them from entering landfills or overloading developing countries. Consumers have also shown a desire for wearing reused or upcycled clothing, especially if more styles and varieties were available. Upcycling methods are diverse, and include reworking used garments to render them current and desirable, such as repairing, embellishing, or changing the size. Another upcycling method involves turning undesired textiles and/or clothing into fabric by reducing the textiles into smaller particles.
Garment Disassembly
A study recently examined key companies in the United Kingdom that upcycle clothing. The five companies in the study used discarded apparel as a starting and some only used suits or denim. Each of these companies utilized a similar process of research and analysis, concept development, sample preparation, pattern development and cutting, and manufacturing. It is noted that these companies had difficulty reproducing designs exactly and that a mass manufacturing process had not yet been streamlined, only a one-off, niche system of production. An issue for all the companies was the time-consuming labor of disassembling the garments. The solution of this particular study was that new technologies needed to be developed that so that the sorting, grading, and disassembly operations would be standardized. It is implied that the process employed by these companies to create clothing involved separating the garments at the seams and removal of closures and other non-textile materials, then engineering the resulting pieces into garments. No further disassembly appears to have been performed.
Students at Cornell University are using EPA funding to research upcycling clothing. The main focus is developing mass production standards for upcycling clothing, scraps, and threads. While they are making garments from pieces of discarded clothing, they are also developing a machine to “fiberize” the unusable fabric scraps.
One company has several home goods products made from fabric scraps such as leather and silk. Their process is not disclosed, however, the company blog states that they typically weave the scraps of fabric together. Strips of leather are woven together to form clothing by another company.
Scrap Salvaging and Quilting Techniques
As for the longarm quilting machine and use of dissolvable material to create a fabric, no information for an exact process has been found. Variations of the idea are circulating the web as arts and crafts ideas. One artist sews designs onto dissolvable material to create art out of threads. She uses a personal home sewing machine to create her art. An Italian company uses scraps of fabric and threads with clear plastic as the bonding agent rather than dissolvable plastic. An Internet search for dissolvable fabric yields results about reusing scraps and making designs with them by sandwiching them between dissolvable fabric. However, no information has been found on making garments from the dissolvable material and longarm quilting machine and of its scalability.
Recycling
Recycling textiles and clothing by reducing them to fibers seems to be the most common approach for reusing textiles. This can be done either mechanically (cutting, shredding, carding) or chemically (melting, decomposing). Large companies have been successful in these methods and exact processes have been developed whereas upcycling clothing into fabrics has not become as exact.
Mechanical Processing
There is a mechanical process called garnetting that reverses textiles into fiber form. This process has been around for decades and produces a recycled postconsumer fiber. Common applications after this process are paper and insulation or the winding of the garnetted fiber into yarns for weaving. After the garnetting process, the fibers can be made into fabrics or yarns in a variety of ways. Ways include making a nonwoven fiberweb, weaving a yarn from garnetted fiber, and creating a composite fabric. The mechanical process is common in natural fibers such as cotton. Some manufacturers use mechanical processing to break down their scraps made in production. Jean companies have begun to use recycling technologies that breakdown to the fiber form. For example, one jeans manufacturer takes scraps of fabric from manufacturing facilities and breaks them down to make new jeans.
Chemical Processing
A UK based company is developing a chemical-based technology for reclaiming clothing and processing it into new yarns and into clothing, again and again (wornagain.info). They want to make it commercially scalable and viable. Another approach sorts fabric by fiber content and can do so as fast as one per second. This creates a more efficient and accurate system. It is estimated that in the next few years there will be a large shift in the industry due to recycling technologies.
However, what is needed is a system and method of upcycling clothing that does not suffer the disadvantages of the prior art. In more particular, what is needed is a scalable, economically viable upcycling technique that involves reusing textile products in a way that will help reduce the negative impacts that traditional textile and garment manufacturing has in terms of air and water pollution, energy use, and overall textile waste. This approach should provide a method of upcycling that has less environmental impact and is commercially viable for large scale usage.
Before proceeding to a description of the present invention, however, it should be noted and remembered that the description of the invention which follows, together with the accompanying drawings, should not be construed as limiting the invention to the examples (or embodiments) shown and described. This is so because those skilled in the art to which the invention pertains will be able to devise other forms of this invention within the ambit of the appended claims.